Why Did Queen Elizabeth II Wear White to King Charles III and Queen Camilla’s Royal Wedding?

King Charles III and Queen Camilla’s royal wedding, which took place on April 9, 2005, had an interesting role reversal: Queen Elizabeth II, the mother of the groom, wore white, while the bride donned a colorful ensemble. A resurfaced video of the former monarch donning her rule-breaking outfit choice, a white overcoat with a matching white hat, at her son’s second nuptials, which @historyinmemes posted on X on April 4, 2024, has taken the internet by storm, going viral with 24 million views. The clip begs the question: Why did the queen really wear white—a color that is usually reserved for the bride—to a wedding that wasn’t hers?

According to Hello! magazine, the queen decided to sport white, rather than her usual bold color choices for her wedding guest attire, because Camilla was wearing a pale blue dress, not the traditional white. The publication notes that after Elizabeth was allegedly informed of the bride’s getup, she chose her own outfit accordingly, so she supposedly wouldn’t clash with Camilla’s ensemble.

The video on X, however, suspects that Elizabeth’s color choice was more strategic. The account owner poses a theory that Elizabeth wore white to Camilla’s wedding to make a public statement about her support of the late Princess Diana. “I love how Queen Elizabeth still honored her after all those years,” the caption said.

To verify this hypothesis, the user placed two clips, one at Diana’s wedding in 1981 and one at Camilla’s wedding in 2005, side by side to highlight the striking contrast. In the footage, Elizabeth is shown wearing a bright blue dress to the ceremony when Diana was Charles’ bride, which is followed by a photo of Camilla standing in the congregation, wearing a dress that appears to be white. The following clip shows Camilla in her pale blue chiffon gown featuring gold embroidery and a matching coat before Elizabeth walks out of the church in her white coat.

Although this theory seems convincing, Diana actually told her biographer years after her big day that Camilla wore gray to her ceremony, not white. “I knew she was in there, of course,” she said, referring to Camilla’s appearance at her nuptials. “I looked for her, so, walking down the aisle, I spotted Camilla, pale gray, veiled pillbox hat. Saw it all: her son, Tom, standing on a chair. To this day, you know—vivid memory."

Another cause of speculation was the late queen’s attendance at her son’s wedding to Camilla. Elizabeth didn’t make an appearance at the couple's civil ceremony in Windsor, but she did attend the marriage blessing afterwards at St. George’s Chapel. Since both Charles and Camilla were previously married and divorced, based on the Church of England’s beliefs on marriage, Charles was allowed to remarry following the death of his previous wife, Diana, but Camilla’s ex-husband, Andrew Parker Bowles, was still living, so the rule didn't apply to her. Since Elizabeth was the head of the monarch and the church, she granted the two of them permission to marry, but she didn’t want to directly ignore the church’s teachings. So, as a compromise, she decided not to attend the legal service.